Private's Progress is a 1956 British comedy film directed by John Boulting and starring Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price, Terry-Thomas and Ian Carmichael.

Unlike his friend, Egan, Windrush is a most reluctant soldier and struggles through basic training at Gravestone Barracks under Sgt.

He is quickly commissioned and the operation is launched, Windrush becoming an unwitting participant in a scheme ostensibly to recover looted artworks from the Germans but really to steal them and sell them to two crooked art dealers.

Cox is arrested as he leaves by Sergeant Sutton, now a Royal Military Policeman; Windrush and Tracepurcel having been tracked as the source of a counterfeit copy of one of the artworks.

Windrush innocently reveals to the military police the contents of the case – a large sum of money – and is also arrested, assumed to be complicit in the fraud.

[citation needed] The War Office refused all requests for cooperation, even after the ending of the film was changed to show the guilty being caught.

The experiences of Windrush are not related to anything outside himself; and since the reality of war is never shown at all, an important point of contrast is lost, and the force of the episode about the looting of German art treasures is dissipated.

[11]Variety wrote: "As a lighthearted satire on British army life during the last war, Private's Progress has moments of sheer joy based on real authenticity.